Net Neutrality Links

I’ve added these links to the Net Neutrality Page today.

Why has Web 2.0 Been (Relatively) Quiet on Net Neutrality??

The point is that I searched through Technorati, and could not find the usual Web 2.0 suspects writing, but just pointing people to fun videos that are cutesy; they are not really taking the banner of Net Neutrality.

I have discussed this with a couple of other bloggers – and wonder if Web 2.0 has not rushed to this because they are so caught up with themselves. Do they think that the banners of open source, community Web, and whatever the buzz words du jour are going to save their companies? If you look at the Web 2.0 sites -Facebook, Riya, YouTube, Second Life, Songbird, BitTorrent and others – they are total bandwidth hogs. Look at how much Second Life is growing, to the point that it is holding virtual conferences, virtual concerts. But at least is it suited to find ways around the potential costs of the loss of Net Neutrality, as it already charges for membership.

And, well, since Friday it is even a bigger issue since the House rejected Net Neutrality.

Now, while the big Net companies – MSFT, Google, Yahoo – have been to the hill to fight for Net Neutrality, the other side of the debate has just been as active. But is smarter and better at lobbying. Just imagine if the Web 2.0 companies rallied their users to send a letter or email to their Senators and Congressman. Would not those voices be heard, or am I a little too Mr. Smith Goes To Washington?

The largest telephone and cable companies such as AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Time Warner want to be able to decide which websites run fast, slow or not at all. They want to be able to charge extra money for fast service and if web sites donÃ¢â¬â¢t pay extra then theyÃ¢â¬â¢ll be doomed to a slow connection.

Net Neutrality wants to ensure that all sites get equal treatment.
The supporters of Net Neutrality include leading high-tech companies such as Amazon.com, Earthlink, EBay, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Skype, Vonage and Yahoo. Prominent national figures such as Internet pioneer Vint Cerf, Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig and FCC Commissioner Michael Copps have called for stronger Net Neutrality protections.

For More Information check out the Net Neutrality FAQ
Yesterday the House of Representatives voted NO for Net Neutrality. The list below shows the people who voted. I have arranged them by state so you can easily see how your representative voted. If you are FOR Net Neutrality and your representative voted NO then donÃ¢â¬â¢t vote for him/her in the next elections.
[THE COMPLETE VOTING LIST FOLLOWS]

Net Neutrality Links

two things: first the internet is the most democratic medium in the history of all media.

caveat, there are still vast swaths of population without access.

secondly, the internet is democratic because it’s end-to-end. the internet was designed with no gatekeepers. it’s based on a layered end-to-end model with no central control (inventor of the internet said that, no not al gore, but i didn’t get the guy’s name).

consumers take it for granted that every application and website are treated equally because it’s always been that way. title 2 of the communications act provides for non-discrimination of information.

the problem is that these rules are about to change in the communications language moving through congress.

the communications company want to get into video over broadband, and turn the internet into a cable tv model.

Our own VoIP blogger Russell Shaw has decided to rebut my position on Net neutrality. Here is my response to Russell.

Russell Shaw says:
George then adds that if everyone is contending for the same bandwidth on an Internet backbone at the same moment in time, then the priority-service packets should never exceed half the total available bandwidth. He feels no network provider that uses their senses would violate such a policy, because that would cause service to degrade to the point that many customers would be alienated.

Here’s where I differ. I don’t think the designation of priority packets should be permitted. That opens up at least the possibility of favored Internet access to content partners. Plus, because of hubris, as well as the law of unintended consequences, I think that network providers may overestimate their ability to maintain system-wide quality for those packets that have not been blessed with what I could colloquially call “most favored packets” standards.

Russell, of course you don’t think this is a good idea when you have no understanding of traffic engineering. One of the comments made to me in my blog was that instead of implementing QoS, a Telco should simply add bandwidth to solve the problem. The knee jerk reaction to this would be “this sounds great” but the problem with this line of thought is that you can add 10 times more bandwidth and you’ll still need QoS.

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